Raising on his elbow, he gazed in bewilderment on the thing, but
turning it over he quickly grasped its meaning, for the words thereon were
plain enough for the dullest man to understand, and read as follows:
"Sacred to the memory of
D.S. PLAISTED,
who departed this life while in full health and curl papers.
His death was sudden,
but quite expected.
This monument was erected by one who fully realized his
WORTH-LESS-NESS.
Peace to his ashes."
A few moments of awful silence followed the reading of this inscription,
then curses both loud and deep were heard in the room. With a bound he was
out of bed, and opening the door he flung his tombstone over the baluster
to the bottom of the stairs, with a crash that startled the family from
their seats as if a thunderbolt had shaken the house.
Dexie disappeared instantly, knowing what the noise meant, but feeling
thankful that there was no one near the stairs when the crash came, or she
would have had to seriously repent her joke. As it was, the stairs were
dinged and marred, and the fragments of the tombstone were strewn over the
hall.
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